After Oslo: Rethinking the Two-State Solution Khaled Elgindy
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
POLICY BRIEF AFTER OSLO: RETHINKING THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION KHALED ELGINDY JUNE 2018 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY While the option of a single state (one person, one vote) may be ideal from an egalitarian point of With the Oslo peace process effectively dead, view, given Israeli opposition and the persistence prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli- of two distinct national movements, it remains, Palestinian issue may soon follow suit. Although at present, nonviable. Confederation models are territorial partition remains theoretically useful in that they allow both peoples to exercise possible, the success of Israel’s settlement self-determination and national self-expression enterprise along with the Palestinian Authority’s without physical or territorial separation. continued decline and possible collapse threaten Despite the various practical and theoretical to eliminate chances for a viable Palestinian shortcomings of confederation, its real value state once and for all. Moreover, the precarious may be less as an alternative to the two-state political consensus that has helped to keep the solution than in providing new ways of thinking two-state solution alive within Israeli, Palestinian, about two states—by expanding the universe of and even American politics for nearly two possible options and negotiating tools available decades is now collapsing on all sides. Given the to the two sides. Given the highly inequitable and likely demise of the traditional partition model, unsustainable nature of the current one-state the time has come to begin looking seriously at reality and dwindling prospects for a traditional the full range of potential solutions—as distinct two-state solution, it would be irresponsible not from outcomes—including confederation and to explore the full range of potential solutions. even binationalism. INTRODUCTION peace process also portends the demise of a two- state solution and, if so, what alternatives there The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is dead—not might be. For nearly two decades, the conventional “comatose” or on “life support,” just plain dead. wisdom in Washington and most of the international Indeed, the Oslo process that began in 1993 had community has held that peace between Israelis already exhausted itself before President Donald and Palestinians could only be achieved through Trump’s arrival in the White House in January 2017. the creation of two independent states, Israel and Trump’s decision in December 2017 to recognize Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, overturning seven However, physical as well as political developments decades of U.S. policy and international consensus, over that time period have all but foreclosed the was merely the fatal blow in a process that had possibility of a clean territorial division of the land. been dying a slow death for more than a decade. The likely demise of the traditional partition model The question now is whether the death of the 1 makes it imperative to begin exploring alternative sovereignty—the minimum requirements for a solutions, including rethinking some of our basic viable and contiguous Palestinian state. Indeed, the assumptions regarding borders, sovereignty, and domestic political and financial costs for any Israeli citizenship. leader or government that attempted to do so would be more or less prohibitive. COLLAPSING PILLARS At the same time, the future of the Palestinian The broad contours of a two-state solution have Authority (PA), the most tangible expression of a been known since President Bill Clinton laid out his future Palestinian state, looks bleaker than ever. parameters for a permanent status agreement in The PA has been plagued by a precipitous drop in December 2000. The Clinton Parameters envisioned international donor aid, which now stands at nearly an independent Palestinian state based on the half of what it was in 2013, along with a budget 1967 borders encompassing all of Gaza and roughly deficit of around $800 million.2 Adding to the PA’s 95 percent of the West Bank, plus mutually agreed financial woes, Congress has enacted further aid upon land swaps, including a sovereign Palestinian cuts that could eliminate roughly half of the $215 capital in East Jerusalem.1 Sovereignty over the million in economic assistance to the Palestinians.3 highly contentious Al-Aqsa Mosque/Temple Mount Meanwhile, the 11-year-old division between compound would be divided between Palestine and Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah-dominated government in Israel. Only a limited number of Palestinian refugees the West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has would be allowed to return to Israel with the bulk paralyzed Palestinian institutional politics, eroded the being resettled in the Palestinian state. Subsequent legitimacy of the Palestinian leadership, and added a negotiating rounds—in 2001, 2008, and 2013- new layer of instability to an already volatile conflict. 14—were more or less in line with these principles. Since the 2007 split, the PA has had no functioning Although a two-state solution remains theoretically parliament or even a meaningful political opposition possible, the practical and political pillars of the classic to answer to, leaving President Abbas to rule by two-state model have collapsed or are collapsing. decree. As his sphere of control continues to shrink both physically and politically, Abbas has grown This is mainly due to the enormous success of increasingly authoritarian and paranoid, jailing critics Israel’s settlement enterprise. On the eve of the and lashing out at would-be rivals and challengers, 1993 Oslo Accords, there were roughly 250,000 both real and imagined. Israeli settlers living beyond the Green Line. After a quarter century of “peace processing,” that number While the international community remains officially now stands at more than 640,000. Roughly two- wedded to a two-state solution, the issue has taken thirds of the Israeli settler population is concentrated a backseat to other priorities like the Syrian civil war, in and around East Jerusalem. While such physical the global refugee crisis, and the threat posed by Iran realities are theoretically reversible, in the absence and its allies. This applies to many of Washington’s of meaningful American or international pressure, Arab allies like Saudi Arabia as well, for whom the Israeli leaders have little or no incentive to remove Palestinian issue no longer seems to be a pressing upward of 150,000 Israeli settlers from the West priority or is an impediment to security and economic Bank or transfer parts of Jerusalem to Palestinian ties with Israel. 1 Bill Clinton, “The Clinton Parameters: Clinton Proposal on Israeli-Palestinian Peace,” (meeting minutes, Washington, DC, December 23, 2000), http://ecf.org.il/media_items/568. 2 Juha Kahkonen and Yan Sun, “West Bank and Gaza,” (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, March 2018), http://www. imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/CR/2018/west-bank-and-gaza-030918-report-to-ahlc.ashx; Gregg Carlstrom, “How Israel Won the War and Defeated the Palestinian Dream,” Newsweek, August 29, 2017, http://www.newsweek.com/israel-palestinians- war-occupation-gaza-west-bank-trump-kushner-abbas-two-656304. 3 Michael Wilner, “Palestinians Slam Congress’s Passage of Taylor Force Act,” Jerusalem Post, March 24, 2018, https://www. jpost.com/American-Politics/Palestinians-slam-Congresss-passage-of-Taylor-Force-Act-546958. 2 Meanwhile, the precarious political consensus that In Washington, support for a two-state solution is has kept the two-state solution afloat since the no longer a matter of bipartisan consensus. “So I’m 1990s is already collapsing on all sides. In Israel, looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the a majority of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s one that both parties like,” President Trump told ruling coalition openly opposes the creation of a journalists assembled in the Oval Office during a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and press briefing with Netanyahu a few weeks into his Gaza Strip, while Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, presidency.8 While many saw it as a throw-away seems to be inching toward annexation.4 While line or a sign of the president’s steep learning polls still show a plurality of Israelis support the goal curve, Trump’s Jerusalem declaration and other of two states, the Israeli public is more concerned policies suggest there is more to it. While previous with economic matters and external threats from American administrations had steadily chipped Iran than with resolution of the Palestinian issue.5 away at the basic principles undergirding the peace process, including U.N. Security Council Resolution Even in the occupied territories, the Palestinian 242 and the “land for peace” formula, the Trump constituency that has traditionally been the most administration has been less shy about tipping supportive of an independent state in the West the scales in Israel’s favor and more explicit in Bank and Gaza, a slim majority of Palestinians now attempts to rewrite the basic ground rules of the 6 opposes a two-state solution. A growing number of peace process. Palestinians, particularly those who came of age during the Oslo years, are abandoning the goal In addition to taking Jerusalem “off the table,”9 of an independent state in favor of a struggle for Trump has yet to express unambiguous support equal rights in a single state. Among those who for Palestinian statehood or for ending Israel’s have lost faith in the “Oslo generation” is Tareq occupation, as each of the last three U.S. presidents Abbas, the son of the Palestinian president. “If you have done. The Trump administration has instead don’t want to give me independence, at least give said that the United States would support a two- me civil rights,” the younger Abbas told The New state solution “if agreed to by both sides,”10 thus York Times.